Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. S02 E09: …Ye Who Enter Here

The race is on to find the ancient city. Who will get there first, S.H.I.E.L.D. or Hydra? What will it mean when they get there? Will the Inhuman connection be revealed in this episode? What is the secret of the hidden city? And who is that faux Agent May? Answers are coming, some we’ve figured out on our own, and some are still up in the air, but either way, this is a do-not-miss episode of “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” Meet me after the jump for my thoughts on “…Ye Who Enter Here.”

Storm Is Coming

The race is on to the hidden city, S.H.I.E.L.D. has the map but Hydra has the key. It’s a race against time, but really what “…Ye Who Enter Here” is is a building episode. We are building toward a climax, building toward the mid-season finale, and more importantly, building toward a revelation. While not all of our questions are answered, and not everything is revealed, the sweetness is in the set up. As Mac says himself at the beginning of the episode, “Storm is coming.”

For Mac of course, this could mean many things. He’s not happy that Bobbi Morse and Hunter are seemingly back on romantic terms, and he’s not happy that Fitz and Simmons are still wrecks and avoiding each other. Mac is a mechanic when it comes down to the bottom line, and he likes to fix things, be it machinery or people. The question at the end of this episode is of course who is going to fix him? I would hate to see him gone for good. Storm indeed.

Fitz-Simmons

This is a subplot that has gone on far too long, almost long enough that maybe I don’t care any more. In the first season I loved Brent Fitz and Jemma Simmons. Their espionage innocence coupled with their “Torchwood” savvy made their platonic friendship so much fun. When Ward tried to kill them and forced feelings out of Fitz, as well as oxygen to his brain, the dynamic was tragically altered. And I don’t like it. It’s like they’re still drowning.

I want confident Fitz back. I want nice trustworthy Simmons back. And I especially want this weird uncomfortableness between the two of them to be gone. If Ward came up with a death trap for the two of them right now, and neither character made it, I honestly can’t say I would miss them at this point. It’s sad, but I mourn for the old Fitz and Simmons, but really don’t care for their season two counterparts. I’m with Mac, I’d be checking the landing gear.

Spy Game

There’s one thing that “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” has always done well, it’s the spy thing, and this episode is a shining star as far as that goes. There are lots of gimmicks and gadgets, from Raina’s tracer to Ward tracking it old school to the broken facemask on Agent 33 that makes her look like a scarred faux Melinda May. And yeah, I love that Ming-na Wen is getting to kick ass on both sides of this war. I loved her fight with Skye.

The best of the spy stuff however is all the quirky cool cloaking. There is invisibility all over the place. The Bus is cloaked, the stolen quinjet is cloaked, and the Hydra quinjets (wow, now there’s two words this old school Avengers fan never thought he would ever hear together) are cloaked. And then there’s the return of Patton Oswalt as the Koenig brothers, all or some of who are probably LMDs, and even he’s got a stealth umbrella. I’m looking forward to the Koenig LMD reveal more than this episode’s finalization of the Kree.

Raina’s Story

Speaking of the Kree, it’s now canon, finally. With Raina in S.H.I.E.L.D. custody, Coulson has Skye talk to her, conversation of course turns to dear old dad. Raina tells Skye about the Diviner, how she can touch it, and so can her dad, and how she also can without turning to stone. It’s because the three of them are special. If it’s because of Kree DNA, then one must assume that Coulson can touch it as well, something I’m sure we may find out next time.

Rains also tells Skye that she first met her father in Thailand where he helped her and her band of ‘freaks.’ Was I the only one waiting for her to say the word Inhuman? She then says she comes from a long line of special people, who believe in the blue Angels who fell from the heavens to Earth – blue Angels called the Kree. Bam, there’s your steak, JP Fallavollita.

Cliffhanger

Inside the hidden city our Agents find a pit, a very deep pit with a legend – the devil’s sentry that was blamed for missing soldiers back in the day. Ironically Sentry is also the name given to Kree robots left behind centuries before in the comics. It might not be a big purple Jack Kirby robot down there, but it’s bad. When Mac goes down there into the no-tech zone he touches some glyphs and comes back up mad dog super strong. Nice to see actor Henry Simmons use his intimidating size to good effect as a rampaging monster.

Meanwhile The Bus is skyjacked by Hydra and Ward takes Raina and Skye, presumably to take her to her father. A reckoning is coming between Ward, Dad, and Whitehall. I just hope it’s not a cop out and the good guys get a piece of at least one of the bad guys before they do each other in. The final scene has Whitehall order The Bus blown up, against Ward’s orders. And so it begins.

Next: the mid-season finale before “Agent Carter” takes over, father and daughter reunion, and perhaps finally, the Inhumans: “What They Become.”

Published by Glenn Walker

Glenn Walker is a professional writer, and editor-in-chief and contributing writer at Biff Bam Pop!. A blogger, podcaster, and reviewer of pop culture in all its forms, he's done stints in radio, journalism and video retail. Ask him anything about movies, television, music, or especially comics or French fries, and you’ll be hard pressed to stump him or shut him up.
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